RIAA Sues Music Fans, Are Music Performers Next?

Purchasing acoustic guitars online?

First of all, I would like to thank Brent for giving me the opportunity to post on UTI. I have been an reader of UTI and its associated blogs for a long time, and I have a great respect for all those who post here.

We all know about the record industry's backwards attempt to shore up its revenues by suing people who download music. As a musician, I have seen this as purely selfish and all about profits for the record labels. I always felt that these actions were hurting musicians too, even if it was peripherally. Now I am finding that the music industry is directly attacking musicians and their craft.

More below the fold...

Many musicians join cover bands and perform in bars, at weddings and music festivals (to name but a few venues) for the love of performing as well as to support themselves. Many musicians spend countless hours listening to other artists songs over and over again to figure out how they are played. Artists share this work by transcribing what they've learned in a format that is called 'tablature', and there are many websites that allow artists to share the tablature they have written with other musicians.

Tablature is different than sheet music. Sheet music is an exact transcription of an artists song as recorded into musical notation. Tablature is someone's interpretation of how to perform a song on a guitar or bass. When you look at these tablature sites, you will find many versions of many songs from many different people. This is one of the reasons these tablature sites are so valuable to musicians; you get many different interpretations of a song. Now it seems that the music industry is targeting these tablature websites.

My favorite tablature site is Guitar Tab Universe. I have downloaded tablature for many songs from this site, and have posted some as well. It is one of the largest tablature sites and is an extremely vibrant community, one which exists only because of musicians' love of music and performance. In addition, these tablature sites give young musicians a huge depth of material to study and learn from.

Last week, when I went to the Guitar Tab Universe, instead of the search engine I was used to seeing, there was a note posted on the site, and the note started as follows:

"The company which owns this website has been indirectly threatened (via our ISP) with legal action by the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) as well as the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement."

At this point, the site owner asked a critical question;

"At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment?"

The answer is NEVER. This is not about copyright infringement; this is about money. It is about the fact that now artists can share their ability to learn with one another without having to spend tremendous amounts of money on expensive songbooks.

Sheet music publishers are now publishing songbooks in tablature as well as traditional music notation. Tablature websites give musicians transcriptions for free, directly impacting sales of the official tablature. So, in the interest of corporate profits, these organizations are trying to shut down these sites just like they are trying to do with music sharing sites. The key difference is that now they are targeting the performers, not just the listeners.

This just shows how corrupt and revenue-driven the music industry has become. Musicians are the lifeblood of the music industry, and rather than nurture and promote grassroots musical communities they attack anything that could impact this year's bottom line. Musicians are being looked at as another source of revenue, and their contribution to the industry is completely ignored.

I, for one, am sick of it, both as a musician and as a music lover. It did not work when the RIAA started suing downloaders, and this will not work either. More and more artists are finding ways to be successful online without the large record companies, and more music lovers are looking for great music outside the major labels. Promotional vehicles like YouTube and MySpace, and online retailers like iTunes and CD Baby have shown that you don't need a major label to become a successful musician. This is scaring the music industry, and with good reason. It is just too bad that they have taken such an ignorant and damaging approach to the issue.